The immediate cause for suspecting the genuineness of survey responses is the divergence in the estimates of households with access to toilets.
Differences between survey estimates and comparable data from administrative sources are not surprising. The survey data are believed to present a more realistic view, especially when it relates to access to public goods and services. Generally, the distrust is more on administrative data from implementing agencies. While the National Sample Surveys (NSS) are not meant to evaluate government programmes directly, its estimates, with a given margin of error, help in an independent assessment of outcomes. Impact assessments are, however, mostly done through specially designed studies.
In a recent article (‘Between the lines of a survey’, IE, December 4, 2019), the writers, one of them being the Chief Statistician of India, have claimed that surveys measuring the impact of government programmes have become less reliable. Several factors are stated to support this conclusion. These mostly deal with the tendency to conceal information. They claim that there is no incentive for people to correctly report their well-being in surveys; rather they perceive an incentive in concealing information on access to goods and services provided by the government.
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